Modern Living: GAMBLING GOES LEGIT

And, lo, in the sorry streets of the stricken city there was of a sudden great exultation and praise unto the Lord. Young men dreamed lusty dreams, while the elders spake of a day at hand when multitudes would flock from near and far to lavish shekels upon the once-more blessed shore. The place of Atlantis would be born again, said the prophets, as a citadel of many marvels, and it would be called Las Vegas East.

The near-biblical euphoria of Election Day still vibrates along the sagging boardwalk and ravaged back streets of Atlantic City. Since New Jersey's voters overwhelmingly approved a proposal to legalize casino gambling in that neglected aunt of Eastern resorts, money has poured into the city as if gold had been found beneath its soiled beaches. Downtown real estate values have soared 200% or more as speculators and promoters of every ilk and bilk rush to make the démodée dowager a belle again —and so prepare to wring the belle of millions of restless Eastern betting chips expected to wind up cozily close to home. "Most people can't afford to go to Vegas," notes one booster, already trying to one-up Nevada. "Anyway, who needs sunshine in a casino?"

Though the first roulette wheel will not spin for at least a year in Vegas East, even New Jerseyites outside Atlantic City are starting to slaver over the promised tourist bonanza. For—say the prophets—it will not only revitalize the old burg of Miss America and Monopoly but also return to the state nearly $18 million in new tax revenue by 1980 and more than $35 million by 1985. No one, of course, is talking about 1984, the year of George Orwell's novel of the superstate Oceania in which betting for "some millions of proles was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive." Nor, for that matter, is the citizenry much disposed to discuss the possibility that organized crime, with deep, comfortable roots in New Jersey, will move in with the wheels and the slots to control the life of the city and even the state.

What obsesses Atlantic City, the rest of Jersey, and indeed much of the rest of the nation, is that gambling—an activity that churns out money, creates jobs, resists recessions and does not pollute the air or streams—is going legit.

Sanctioning of the sometime sin has been sweeping the nation over the past decade. In the early 1960s, outside of Nevada, state-countenanced gambling was almost entirely confined to track betting. Today, 44 states have some form of legalized gambling and the kinds are growing. Legislation to permit new and expanded types of wagering—from jai alai to bingo, dog racing and card rooms —is pending in 37 states. A few states have even invaded the fertile field of numbers betting, long the exclusive and profitable province of organized crime. Two states, Delaware and Montana, have joined Nevada in providing legal betting on sports events like professional football, which is where illegal bookies get most of their action.